The 14th Day Read Online Free Page B

polite, he can see. It’s clear she’s fascinated by this new arrival, and that bothers Vaniok. She probably thinks his remark was crude.
    â€œYou and I aren’t that way,” he says now, trying to be more careful in his choice of words. “Jory is so …” He brings his hands together, pushing them against each other with all the force he can muster.
    â€œExactly,” she says. “That’s what makes him so interesting.” The trill of her silvery laughter runs up the back of Vaniok’s neck. He and Ila are distant cousins who only discovered this fact here in the host country. In the months since she’s been in the university town they’ve become good friends, which was easy at first when Vaniok thought of her as a relative and felt protective toward her. But Ila is a strong, independent person who doesn’t need anybody’s protection and gradually Vaniok has come to think of her less as someone who’s distantly connected by blood and more as simply a woman he’s happy to be with. Nobody would call her beautiful but there’s something about her that makes men look at her and keep looking, something more than her expressive face, her clear, fair skin or her compact figure. Vaniok has been with her enough to know that at any moment something can come into her eyes, a sudden darkening, like a cloud-shadow, that makes her seem older and wiser than her years. There’s something else he glimpses at times like this: that she’s determined to reach for what she wants and take it, whatever the obstacles. Catching sight of this look, Vaniok wishes he could feel that way. Now, the sunlight behind her traces a halo of blonde hair around her head and coats her white arm with a fringe of golden down. Vaniok wants very much to touch it.
    â€œBut weren’t we all like that at one time,” he insists, leaning forward, “didn’t we all think we were going back there tomorrow?”
    â€œNo,” she says, her almost oriental eyes narrowing. “Once I left there I knew I was never going back.”
    He’s pleased that she seems to be siding with him. “Give our friend time,” he says. “He’ll change.”
    Ila says nothing. Vaniok wonders what she’s thinking.
    â€œYou’re happy here?” he asks. On the plate before him is a torn, hard-crusted roll. “You don’t mind it that people are still asking us to repeat what we say?”
    She smiles. “I intend to be happy wherever I am.” She’s told him of her escape, when she had to lie under the hay in a farmer’s barn, breathless as a corpse, while men with bayonets prodded and poked nearby; and he can imagine her first making that promise to herself as she lay beneath the hay, the sharp bristles prickling her face, the smell filling her nose and making her want to sneeze while the soldiers with bayonets moved by, near enough to touch.
    A well-dressed passerby smiles at Ila. “The men here don’t seem to mind it when you misuse their precious language,” Vaniok says with a frown.
    She tosses her head. “Words aren’t the only way of speaking.”
    He feels a gust of sadness; she doesn’t have much trouble becoming friendly with the people here, she doesn’t have to cultivate a knowledge of basketball. Vaniok falls silent. Countless frustrations throng the moment like hurrying, anonymous crowds. Then he remembers Jory and quotes the lines the newcomer declaimed when they first met: “Blue snow on black limbs … smell of mushrooms hidden in the earth.”
    She looks at him blankly. “I was never fond of poetry.”
    â€œIla,” his voice catches, “that’s just one more reason I like being around you.” Boldly, madly, he takes her hand for an instant and lets it go, thinking again of how much easier it will be for her to make her way among these people. All at once he feels, as he